Coming Undone
by Sami-Fire
Summary: Gilbert suffers from something other than egomania.


Gilbert woke up slowly, his eyes opening to bleary, blurred vision that warped the world around him. He blinked several times to re-focus, eventually seeing that he had been passed out on top of a desk and some papers. Next to him was a teacup, but he couldn't remember what was in it. Tea? Beer? …Why the hell would there be beer in a teacup?! Then again, it made sense that Ivan would only let him have a teacupful of beer. Stingy bastard.

However, after that, it seemed that he couldn't regain his focus. Everything just seemed a little bit off with the surroundings. Maybe it was because he'd just woken up, but everything seemed a little hazy, and he wasn't sure if he was actually touching the desk or not… well, his hands were making contact with the desk, but he didn't _feel_ the desk. Something wasn't quite right here. Was he… floating? _No way! That's not possible!_

At that moment, Gilbert heard a voice. It was familiar. Very, very familiar…

_West is calling me!_

Wait a minute. There was no way. West was a million miles away now. Well, not quite a million, but West Berlin might as well have been in another universe. But that didn't change the fact that he was definitely hearing his brother's voice. He looked all around for the source of Ludwig's voice, but kept finding that the voice was coming from weird objects. Vases, cabinets, chairs, lamps… the voice seemed to be coming from places that it couldn't possibly be in. After about fifteen minutes of checking under, around, and inside various inanimate objects, Gilbert decided to just give it a rest and try to remember what it was he'd been working on before he fell asleep.

By the time he made it back to the desk, he'd developed a pounding headache. He pushed it aside, staring at the papers for a bit, but for some reason the words on the sheets made absolutely no sense. He tried turning them upside down, sideways, reading them from bottom to top… no, nothing. The papers ended up back where they started, except in a different order and in a significantly messier stack.

After that, nothing happened for a while. Gilbert found himself unable to do anything other than stare into space and drum his fingers on the table. His headache had only gotten worse. If he recalled correctly, there was in fact some aspirin floating around in a medicine cabinet. Yes, there was! He scrambled to the bathroom, opened the cabinet, and grabbed the bottle of aspirin. Ah, yes, here we go, take one or was it two every four hours or something like that or maybe just take the whole bottle mmm yes nummy-nummy-

…_Wait._

_WAIT._

_WAIT A DAMN MINUTE._

_Did I seriously just consider taking a whole bottle of aspirin?!_

…_What the hell's going on with me today?_

So in the end, he only took _one_ aspirin and left feeling very, very freaked out. He resumed his post of sitting as his desk doing nothing. Then it slowly occurred to him that the house was quiet. _Way_ too quiet. He was alone, but it wasn't like he was lonely or anything! Being alone was fun, anyway.

But for some reason, a wave of sadness washed over Gilbert. He was just sitting there when he just... got the blues. He remembered hearing Ludwig's voice earlier. Damn, he missed his brother. Again, he wasn't lonely at all. _Hey, I can miss my brother without being lonely, right?_ He thought. A single tear rolled down his cheek, and he immediately put his hand up to his face to wipe the drop away, as though it were acid or some other terrible thing.

No matter what he tried, Gilbert's fit of depression didn't leave him. In fact, it got worse. When he next became conscious of what he was doing, he was in bed and sobbing into a pillow. He gradually pulled away from it, more than a little shocked by his own actions. He tossed the surprisingly wet pillow aside and slowly got up, trying to wipe his eyes as though leaving the tears alone would burn his face off.

He began to walk listlessly out of the room when something caught his eye. It was the mirror hanging on the wall- a full-length one, of course, so that he could ogle every awesome inch of himself as he got ready in the morning. But something seemed to be wrong with the mirror's reflection today. Gilbert went to the mirror to inspect the anomaly and felt his heart nearly stop.

...Was that face in the mirror _his?_

That face, reddened and even a little puffy from crying, with eyes that that were nearly bloodshot and shining with unshed tears... that was hideous. So, so ugly. What was something so thoroughly NOT awesome doing in Gilbert's mirror? The more he tried to answer that question, the more hellish the thing in the mirror looked. Finally, the thing became too monstrous to bear. _Get out of my mirror, you freak of nature!_

Gilbert gathered his right hand into a fist, pulled back, and punched the mirror.

The loud crash the mirror made as it shattered satisfied Gilbert, reassuring him that he had slain the monster that had just been looking him in the eyes. But then he felt _pain_. He took one look at his hand and noticed that it was _bleeding_. The beast had gotten in one last strike before it had been vanquished, and who was to say that it couldn't attempt another? (Of course, the wounds were from the glass, but that didn't occur to him at the time.) Still staring at the blood running from his hand, Gilbert mouthed one solitary curse in disbelief.

Confronted with such a bizarre menace, Gilbert did what seemed logical to him at that point: he ran. Out of the house, onto the street, as fast as he could go. He felt as though he had separated from his body, with him watching everything blur from above as it charged through the streets of East Berlin below. The blood coming from his injured hand didn't bother him at all. He just kept his physical shell running as he became one with the wind. Those few moments felt amazing… the wind slipped by him, the meaningless shapes of people and buildings smeared together as he sped forward, and he felt no obligation to pay any attention to any of those things. He did not feel the impact of his feet hitting the ground at all. He may as well have been flying. _I'm quite like a little bird today,_ thought Gilbert from his perch far above his body, thinking of his fuzzy little yellow friends that came and went every so often. Where did they go when they were done watching (and occasionally participating in) his daily feats of greatness? Slowly, the answer came to him, as if a little bird had in fact stopped by to tell him: _they went west._ They flew over the wall, with no need to worry about getting shot down by the border patrols. _Maybe I can fly over the wall, too_. Gilbert picked his destination: the Berlin Wall. Well, it wasn't like he expected to literally fly over it, but why not try and get out of this damned place? The guards would probably know better than to shoot _him_, anyway.

However, he swiftly felt himself crash to earth with the realization that he was being followed. Or at least, he thought he was being followed. Gilbert ducked into a side street, paused to catch his breath, and peered out from behind a corner. Lo and behold, there was Ivan himself, walking down the street, pipe in hand. He seemed to be his usual "cheery" self, calmly strolling, occasionally looking from side to side (probably for Gilbert), and sometimes even greeting people that came too close… Naturally, it didn't matter that Ivan _appeared_ to be in a good mood. He had that damned pipe with him. And why would Ivan carry that thing around with him if he didn't have some "serious business" to attend to? So now Gilbert had two objectives: one, get to the Berlin Wall, and two, avoid Ivan.

Once again, Gilbert took flight (or at least, it felt like he did). After quite some time spent evading passerby (and Ivan when he was spotted), he finally made it. The Wall stood before him, massive, gray, and imposing. And yet, as intimidating an obstacle as it was, he was gonna _climb_ this big bastard. He set both hands on the wall… and was jolted back to reality by pain creeping back into his right hand. Even after all this time, it was still bleeding from where the mirror-monster had attacked him. Well, that was just too damn bad. He was getting out of this blasted place, busted hand or not. Then, suddenly, a horrible noise made itself heard, sending shivers down his spine…

"I don't think you should do that, Gilbert."

…

_**Ivan.**_

The one thing that Gilbert had been trying to escape the entire time was right behind him. Worse yet, it- er, _he_ put his hand on Gilbert's shoulder, trying to hold him back from the wall. The manic energy that had been powering him up to this point just… left. His left hand slowly and shakily came down from the wall, and he turned to face Ivan with a speed that showed his reluctance. It was a bit like going completely limp, only in more of a mental sense. He just couldn't bring himself to resist, which was a strong indicator that something was very, very wrong. He felt something similar to his "flying" before, with that feeling of looking at himself from a distance. However, this was significantly worse. Gilbert Beilschmidt, the man normally in control of anything he wanted to be in control of, didn't feel like he was in control of his body. It was every bit as disturbing as it sounds, and right now he was completely at Ivan's mercy. He made one last attempt to urge his body forward, away, or _somewhere_. _Dammit, move! Why can't I make myself move? It's… like I'm not _in_ my body or something._ Then came an emotion that was almost completely foreign to him: fear. It slowly crept into his head, along with the realization of what had really just happened. _…I don't believe it. I just lost my mind. I JUST LOST MY MIND! THE GREAT AND MIGHTY GILBERT BEILSCHMIDT SUFFERS FROM SOMETHING OTHER THAN BEING TOO AWESOME! I JUST LOST MY MIND!_ Those five words echoed over and over in his head, a literal madness mantra.

"I never expected anything like this to happen," Ivan sighed, picking up Gilbert's bloody right hand. For a very brief moment, something that resembled genuine concern or worry passed over his face as his eyes met the hand. Nevertheless, his usual odd smile came back almost immediately after. "My, my, what caused you to do this, Gilbert? Is there something you would like to tell me?" Gilbert shook his head. No, he had absolutely nothing that he _wanted_ to tell Ivan. "Why don't we discuss it later, once your hand is bandaged up?" The words seemed kind enough, but since the speaker was Ivan, the true intent could have been anything. Gilbert felt trapped in a "damned if I do, damned if I don't" situation. He could stay where he was and continue to lose his head, or he could go with Ivan and lose his head some more. Well, he couldn't get his hand bandaged just standing there, so he seemed to be stuck with the Russian anyway. He nodded in response to the request. "Well, let's get you the help you need, first," Ivan said at last, this time taking Gilbert's uninjured hand as he led him away from the Wall.

As the two madmen walked by- one dazed, confused, and clearly not in a good mood, the other dragging the first along and singing softly to himself in Russian- people kept their glances as brief as typical curiosity would allow and made sure not to come too close to either of them for quite some time.


End file.
